[TriLUG] One thing led to another and killed my Samsung Ultrabook running Linux Mint.

[Jeremy Davis via TriLUG]

So I need help getting back in. When I try to log in it gives me a message
that my session lasted less than 10 seconds. When I select details, it
mentions something like /etc/mdm/ and something about Xsessions and a
failure on line 17 related to Cadence which is a nice audio program that
helps resolve conflicts between pulse audio and Jack.

The problem began when I realized my external mic was not sending a signal
to Ardour. At that time only the internal mic would send a signal and I
could see both mics in the sound manager panel. I tried some things with
Cadence like a forced restart of the audio components.

This caused a new problem. I could no longer see anything in the input or
output of the sound panel. Also my sound panel applet disappeared. I think
the sound card bite the dust.

I read online I should try reinstalling some of the pulse audio packages
and so I did. Then I did a reboot for the changes to take effect. No longer
was I able to log in and I began receiving the "less than 10 seconds
session" error message.

At this point I remembered, that Cadence was pulling from a different
repository other than the Linux Mint repository. Also pulse audio probably
was pulling from the other repository as well. This caused the chaos.

My command line skills are not the best. I can log in to the boot manager
command prompt and edit with nano. But I don't know what to do beyond that.

Any thoughts on how to fix the OS and then the sound card issues?

Jeremy Davis